Product Details
HOLLAND & HOLLAND
A PAIR OF 12-BORE 'ROYAL HAMMERLESS' SEMI-SELECTIVE SINGLE-TRIGGER HAND-DETACHABLE SIDELOCK EJECTORS, serial no. 29169 / 70,
circa 1915, 30in. nitro chopperlump barrels, tubes engraved 'HOLLAND & HOLLAND. 98. NEW BOND STREET. LONDON.' and the ribs gold-inlaid '1' and '2' at the breech ends (No.1 right wall at 19, No.2 left at 19), 2 1/2in. chambers, bored approx. 1/4 and 1/2 choke (both), toplevers gold-inlaid '1' and '2', automatic safeties with gold-inlaid 'SAFE' details, gold-inlaid cocking-indicators, rolled-edge triggerguards, best 'Royal' scroll engraving, brushed finish, 14 1/4in. figured stocks, weight 6lb. 8oz. (No.1) 6lb. 6oz. (No.2), in their individual makers leather cases
Provenance: The vendor has kindly provided us with the following information:
"The guns were a 21st Birthday Present to my grand-father, Sir Ronald Hibbert Cross, from his parents.
He was 18 when the First World War started, and on leaving Eton College he joined the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry. He received the guns in 1917 during the War when he was fighting at the front, by that time as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, and used them first in France at that time.
He then had a glittering career, first as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Rossendale, then when the Second World War started as Minister of Economic Warfare under Neville Chamberlain, and then Minister of Shipping in Winston Churchill's government.
In 1941 he was posted to Australia as British High Commissioner, the chief UK diplomat to a key war ally. In 1951 he returned to Australia as Governor of Tasmania, and Mount Ronald Cross in Western Tasmania is named after him.
His eldest daughter Angela, my mother, married The Honourable Neil Campbell. When Sir Ronald had finished shooting himself, he gave the guns to his son-in-law, my father, who then in turn gave them to me.
So the guns have happily survived two world wars, and have always been used, by three generations, for over 100 years. On pheasants and partridges mainly in Kent at the Everlands Estate, on grouse in Cumbria and Aberdeenshire, and much else besides."
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Estimate £10,000-15,000
S2 - Sold as a Section 2 Firearm under the 1968 Firearms Act